theCryptofishist wrote:Ah, American Eugenicists. We might still think it was okay, if there hadn't been that glaring correction in the 40s...

Nah, most of us still do believe in the "good" of eugenics, but of course we don't want to admit it, or label it as such. At the social level, while we're not about to authorize sterilization or gassing people, we still laugh with and celebrate sites like the Darwin Awards and talk about ridding the gene pool of stupid people ("well, hopefully he didn't manage to have any kids!"). At the procreation level, soon we'll have genetic analysis of fetuses in the womb to determine if certain inheritable traits can be... avoided. Maybe we'll even have selective genes selection and pruning at conception, a step up from surrogate mother and sperm donor choice.

Sure it's not early 20th century eugenics, and who can really blame those 20th-century eugenicists? They only had sterilization and executions at their disposal. These days but now we're more enlightened right? We know what is really inheritable, now that we have the science of genetics, and we'll achieve those aims without messy issues such as human rights getting in the way.

WTF!?

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

It shouldn't be forgotten where germany went to copy the legal devices for eugenics.

Now we have debtor's prisons again. (look it up)Eugenics started with the wealthy and the philosophy that merit and wealth are related, especially in god's eyes.Perhaps a legal system dependent on money is a partial substitute?Now education and jobs depend more on wealth too.

Anyone who thinks it isn't important should take a good long watch of Idiocracy - the most frightening comedy ever produced.

Savannah: I don't know what it is, but no thread here escapes alive. You'll get 1 or 2 real answers at minimum, occasionally 10 or 12, and then we flog it until it's unrecognizable and you can't get your deposit back.

Anyone interested should understand the implications of denovo mutations.And stress induced mutations which can change the gene pool.

"Exclusive" groups should remember the lesson of the plague years.Many countries face a similar situation now.

The theory that the groups we select can be as powerful as family has many ramifications.It serves to explain "benevolence" and "generosity", and the ancient economy of universal reciprocity.And it may explain why humanity has survived at all.

It is noteworthy if protecting the weak is why the strong have survived, especially against physically stronger competition.

theCryptofishist wrote:Ah, American Eugenicists. We might still think it was okay, if there hadn't been that glaring correction in the 40s...

Nah, most of us still do believe in the "good" of eugenics, but of course we don't want to admit it, or label it as such. At the social level, while we're not about to authorize sterilization or gassing people, we still laugh with and celebrate sites like the Darwin Awards and talk about ridding the gene pool of stupid people ("well, hopefully he didn't manage to have any kids!"). At the procreation level, soon we'll have genetic analysis of fetuses in the womb to determine if certain inheritable traits can be... avoided. Maybe we'll even have selective genes selection and pruning at conception, a step up from surrogate mother and sperm donor choice.

Sure it's not early 20th century eugenics, and who can really blame those 20th-century eugenicists? They only had sterilization and executions at their disposal. These days but now we're more enlightened right? We know what is really inheritable, now that we have the science of genetics, and we'll achieve those aims without messy issues such as human rights getting in the way.

WTF!?

Not quite sure how seriously to take this post...Whatever the tools we have at our disposal, we don't know what actually has the survival value. It's quite likely that the selection pressures over the past millennium in Europe has been more about surviving communicable diseases than intelligence, for instance. Once I let that sink it, eugenics became somewhat moot for me. Or very moot. Or from a different viewpoint, I could think of multiple reasons to sterilize myself, and others to continue my family's presence in the gene pool. I'm just as glad that I was never given the power, because it seems like a sure-fire way of committing a horrible sin without any actual possibility of getting what it is what I want.

But yes, I hate stupid people all the time. I just try not to take myself seriously when I do that.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

theCryptofishist wrote:Not quite sure how seriously to take this post...Whatever the tools we have at our disposal, we don't know what actually has the survival value. It's quite likely that the selection pressures over the past millennium in Europe has been more about surviving communicable diseases than intelligence, for instance. Once I let that sink it, eugenics became somewhat moot for me. Or very moot. Or from a different viewpoint, I could think of multiple reasons to sterilize myself, and others to continue my family's presence in the gene pool. I'm just as glad that I was never given the power, because it seems like a sure-fire way of committing a horrible sin without any actual possibility of getting what it is what I want.

But yes, I hate stupid people all the time. I just try not to take myself seriously when I do that.

Yes, it's ambiguously serious to draw up those thoughts like you presented above. We'll tell ourselves we're horrified by eugenics-type thinking, but at the same time would approve it in "benign" circumstances. It's one thing to say you're happy someone "didn't breed", entirely another to say the person ought to be gassed. I think most people approve of eugenics in some form however, even if they're not aware of it.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

A problem with eugenics, or eugenic-type thinking, is the belief that "survival of the fittest" is about individuals. It's not. It's about populations. It's about whether Population A is better or worse suited to its environment than neighbouring Population B, with whom it competes for resources.

So many things go into making a population better- or worse-suited to its environment. At a given point, it might be about the intelligence of its cleverest members, whether the ratio of male to female offspring is 10:1 or 10.5:1, or whether grandparents survive to help with the raising of those offspring. It might be about ability to digest a plant which has become a noxious weed in the ecosystem or having the technology to eradicate said weed to grow other food. Eugenics is based on allowing the strongest individuals to survive but says nothing about their ability to strengthen a community. And what makes them worthy of the title "strongest" is, of course, entirely subjective. And true fitness, in the evolutionary sense, is entirely dependent on environment.

If you want drama to stop following you everywhere, try letting go of the leash.

theCryptofishist wrote:Ah, American Eugenicists. We might still think it was okay, if there hadn't been that glaring correction in the 40s...

Nah, most of us still do believe in the "good" of eugenics, but of course we don't want to admit it, or label it as such. At the social level, while we're not about to authorize sterilization or gassing people, we still laugh with and celebrate sites like the Darwin Awards and talk about ridding the gene pool of stupid people ("well, hopefully he didn't manage to have any kids!"). At the procreation level, soon we'll have genetic analysis of fetuses in the womb to determine if certain inheritable traits can be... avoided. Maybe we'll even have selective genes selection and pruning at conception, a step up from surrogate mother and sperm donor choice.

Sure it's not early 20th century eugenics, and who can really blame those 20th-century eugenicists? They only had sterilization and executions at their disposal. These days but now we're more enlightened right? We know what is really inheritable, now that we have the science of genetics, and we'll achieve those aims without messy issues such as human rights getting in the way.

WTF!?

My biggest problem with this are the unanticipated consequences.

JKhttp://www.mudskippercafe.comWhen I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

theCryptofishist wrote:Ah, American Eugenicists. We might still think it was okay, if there hadn't been that glaring correction in the 40s...

Nah, most of us still do believe in the "good" of eugenics, but of course we don't want to admit it, or label it as such. At the social level, while we're not about to authorize sterilization or gassing people, we still laugh with and celebrate sites like the Darwin Awards and talk about ridding the gene pool of stupid people ("well, hopefully he didn't manage to have any kids!"). At the procreation level, soon we'll have genetic analysis of fetuses in the womb to determine if certain inheritable traits can be... avoided. Maybe we'll even have selective genes selection and pruning at conception, a step up from surrogate mother and sperm donor choice.

Sure it's not early 20th century eugenics, and who can really blame those 20th-century eugenicists? They only had sterilization and executions at their disposal. These days but now we're more enlightened right? We know what is really inheritable, now that we have the science of genetics, and we'll achieve those aims without messy issues such as human rights getting in the way.

WTF!?

My biggest problem with this are the unanticipated consequences.

Bwahahahahahaha, yeah, but fortunately from an evolutionary perspective all these things are pretty meaningless. The invisible hand of Darwin will not be influenced by human efforts, and as individuals the best we can do is roll our dice with care and attention.

"You can be whoever you want to be, and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully they don't really care."

MyDearFriend wrote:Bwahahahahahaha, yeah, but fortunately from an evolutionary perspective all these things are pretty meaningless. The invisible hand of Darwin will not be influenced by human efforts, and as individuals the best we can do is roll our dice with care and attention.

Thanks for putting this so much more succintly than I could.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

You can tell they spent a lot of time practicing! I kinda wish I knew what the hell they were singing about. Especially at about the 53 second mark, when some glowing orb shoots out of the blond ones 'merkin'

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

I like how no shot is more than 2 seconds long. They never actually had to string two "steps" together (and I use the term "step" very loosely here). Even so, they're out of sync 80% of the time -- quite an accomplishment, really!

But the embarrassed horses take the cake. I was sceptical about that part of Fishy's description, but seeing is believing. Poor things! At 3:00, one of them actually turns his head away.

If you want drama to stop following you everywhere, try letting go of the leash.

LOL!O MAN, now watch it again with out sound! Or even better, with completely different music playing. I just watched it with "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" playing on the radioEspecially shortly after the 3min mark where two of the girls just stop dancing and start talking to each other, then randomly one girl thrusts her hips (about 3:45).

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

Good Gawd, that was terrible. I think they were singing about food....some vague reference to a "burrito" inside a "quesadilla". The shooting star from her vajayjay was a veiled attempt at describing that she has a microwave there. Hay carrumba!

Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge? " I am a controlled substance". Savannah.

I need one of those for my camping gear! Our camp could really use a Cooch Cooker.

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

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Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge? " I am a controlled substance". Savannah.